US Attorney General Gonzales was hammered by lawmakers on Thur who demanded to know why the administration took more than 5 years to obtain court approval of its war-time domestic spying initiative. "I somewhat take issue … with Senator Arlen Specter's innuendo that this is something we could have pulled off the shelf & done in a matter of days or weeks," Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "This is a very complicated application. We worked on it a long time." Gonzales announced an abrupt end to the warrantless electronic surveillance program on Wed, just 2 weeks after Democrats took control of the US Congress, promising investigations as well as legislation to bring the program in line with the law. Critics have charged that Bush overstepped his authority after the Sept 11 attacks with the domestic spying program along with other measures such as holding terrorism suspects indefinitely without charges, & interrogations that critics said amounted to torture... http://abcnews.go.com

Radical measures for tackling crime - ranging from monitoring the behaviour of the mentally ill with radio chips to hormone injections for sex offenders — are to be considered by the Government in a wide-ranging policy review ordered by Tony Blair. The Prime Minister said yesterday that Labour had to renew its sense of leadership and energy as voters were getting bored with the party after 10 years in power. He disclosed that he intended to stay in power until at least June to oversee a policy review aimed at ensuring that a "new New Labour" agenda would take the Government into the next election after he had left No 10.The Cabinet Office published four policy review documents outlining the "big questions and choices" facing society in the next decade....http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=I4VMVYL1KGVJBQFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/01/17/ncrime17.xml

The Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has hit back at US criticism of his failure to halt sectarian violence and complained about the lack of strong support from Washington.In comments illustrating the mutual impatience of the two governments, Mr Maliki criticised America's seeming ambivalence towards his administration."I wish that we could receive strong messages of support from the US so we don't give some boost to the terrorists and make them feel that they might have achieved success," Mr Maliki told reporters in Baghdad yesterday.He took issue with comments by the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, that the Iraqi government was living on "borrowed time"....http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1993140,00.html

Comoros' largest island shook twice on Thursday, residents said, and experts said there was still a threat of eruption from the Indian Ocean archipelago's Mount Karthala volcano despite the tremors weakening.Comorian authorities have made emergency plans to help as many as 30,000 people in case the 2,361 meter (7,746 ft) volcano, which dominates the main island of Grand Comore, blows. "I felt very faint tremors in the morning and at three o'clock," resident Mounira Boba said. "But I'm not so worried." The volcano seemed to have settled since the weekend when strong tremors — thought to have been caused by lava trying to escape — forced thousands of people to sleep outside for fear their homes might collapse. ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2804537

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said 400 fighters from a key backer of the Shiite-led government have been arrested, and a government spokesman said Thursday the U.S. is not giving Iraqi security forces enough money for training and equipment. Al-Maliki's claim sought to address doubts about his willingness to take on the Shiite militiamen, especially the Mahdi army that is loyal to his key supporter, the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Many of the militiamen are believed responsible for much of the sectarian violence in Baghdad in the past year. In Baghdad on Thursday, bombers and gunmen killed at least 18 more people in a series of morning attacks as the capital faces a surge in violence ahead of a planned U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown. The Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that al-Maliki was deeply critical of President Bush during a briefing with a small group of reporters....http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/01/18/iraq.arrests.ap/index.html?eref=rss_world

Senior US diplomat Jendayi Frazer has criticised a move by Somalia's parliament to sack its speaker. Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan was removed for having unauthorised talks with the Islamists, who controlled much of southern Somalia until last month. He also opposed Ethiopia's intervention to help drive the Islamists out. Ms Frazer said that a spirit of reconciliation was needed in Somalia, and the no-confidence motion was likely to have a negative impact on dialogue. Last week, the US launched air strikes in the far south of Somalia against the routed Islamist group, who they accuse of harbouring al-Qaeda members suspected of bombing US embassies in East Africa and a 2002 attack on Israeli targets in Kenya. The Islamists denied they were sheltering senior al-Qaeda operatives. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6273949.stm